When is it Okay...

[JulieM]

14 minutes ago, HappyJackWagon said:

Although, it is interesting to consider figures like Paul H Dunn who employed exaggeration and faith promoting stories at a high level. Were church leaders wary of correcting his experiences because they didn't want to judge? Were they merely being sensitive to Dunn or did they have a greater responsibility to the general membership?

Most likely, I think they just trusted him. So there are some risks to trusting/believing things people say, or allowing them to stand, when stated in a public setting. Sometimes challenge may be appropriate, which brings us back to the OP which asks, when is it ok?

I think if someone's lies are hurting someone or causing harm, it would be appropriate to challenge them or call them on their lies.

[stemelbow]

5 minutes ago, Mystery Meat said:

You clearly didn't read my entire post. I did say, that as a matter of practice "I would rarely do this as I don't generally think it is my place." That doesn't mean I have to believe everyone's sob story about how their bishop was this or that, or that the Church lied to them, or fill in the blank, when my own experiences run so contrary to that. There are some things I can validate, like "understanding Church history can be hard and their are tough issues that I don't understand." There are other things I absolutely cannot validate such as a decision to leave based on the mistakes (or even abuses) of local leaders, history, or anything else. So while I am very nice to people who are struggling with their faith that does not mean I have believe their story especially when I think they are inherently unreliable.

I read the entire post.  I saw your line.  I was responding to your question of what if.  If someone intends to call out another based on their hunch that the person is lying, then I'd say doing so is a jerky thing to do.  I didn't comment at all on whether any one of us is required to believe anyone else.  Believing a story or not is different than telling someone they are lying because you guess so. 

I personally try to take people at their word when they rehearse for me their story.  Of course anyone can be wrong or lying when they do so.  But it's beyond rude, I'd think, to just say someone's lying because you want them to be. 

The reason I comment is I've seen too many Church members tell people they are lying when they try to tell their story.  I find the practice despicable.  I give cops a pass if they are trying to get the bottom of a crime or something, though. 

[Mystery Meat]

Just to clarify:

This thread was meant to clarify what is and what is not gaslighting. First, I would rarely, IF EVER, call someone to the carpet after they gave me their reasons for leaving the church (unless I had some responsibility/authority for the person, and even then with great care). Really what I was trying to show is what has been answered by Calm, Nehor, and Blue Dreams. And that is just because someone has a story and another person questions that story does not mean that the person questioning is guilty of gaslighting. Based on the other threads and how the terms is being used in the Bloggernacle by ex mos and their allies, you would think disbelief and valid questioning of a story would be gaslighting.

Which leads me to my next clarification. Yes, this thread was meant to explicitly discuss the ex-mos, transitioning mos, doubting mos, and anti-mos' accusations (false accusations) of gaslighting. That is not to say that LDS folks are not capable of creating and concocting these elaborate narratives that are ultimately unreliable and unbelievable. But, and this is critical, LDS folks aren't the ones typically going around accusing the non-mo crowd of gaslighting. In fact, non-mos and those like them have been questioning LDS folks' narratives for decades (if not since the beginning) using terms like cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, and intellectual dishonesty. But the moment I hypothetically bring up the possibility of questioning a former mos exit story, I am called a big jerk.

Oh the hypocrisy.

[BlueDreams]

7 minutes ago, HappyJackWagon said:

Although, it is interesting to consider figures like Paul H Dunn who employed exaggeration and faith promoting stories at a high level. Were church leaders wary of correcting his experiences because they didn't want to judge? Were they merely being sensitive to Dunn or did they have a greater responsibility to the general membership?

Most likely, I think they just trusted him. So there are some risks to trusting/believing things people say, or allowing them to stand, when stated in a public setting. Sometimes challenge may be appropriate, which brings us back to the OP which asks, when is it ok?

How do you mean by ok? 

In general I don't think I'd personally call them out in the first moment of me wondering whether they're embellishing or exaggerating or whatever else I feel is making them unreliable. I think of my friend's ex-boyfriend. I jokingly say that I have really good jerk radar (although I use worse language in real life) in the sense that I will dislike or be uncomfortable with someone in a few minutes when it becomes clear something is really off with them. This guy I disliked in a matter of seconds. But I didn't really voice my concerns to her for a couple months, even though it was apparent to me that the relationship was unhealthy (though I did a poor job hiding my dislike of him). The reason being was that she wasn't ready to hear it and she had her own belief that she needed to be in that relationship. I have a policy not to mess with people's spiritual promptings, even if I think they're a little crazy. When it felt like time to speak up, it wasn't an all out "drop kick this idiot!" but a gentle nudge at her perspective that the answer may not mean she needed to be with him forever and more so that it was the "short road" (the video about having a prompting to take the wrong path had come out right around that time). 

Now that i think about it I didn't talk to him at all about his crazy. I only talked to her. And I just gave forward a different possibility to what she felt was a prompting (and that I had no evidence wasn't, minus the dude was nuts). 

Other circumstances that I've prodded at what I felt people had/said/did was wrong varied. Some people I called out quickly, some people I've waited and gently nudged. Sometimes I wasn't at all tactful. I'm sure at some point I was probably wrong in doing so. I don't know if there can be a universal "ok" for something like this. I think it's more important to call it when it's apparent that it may be harmful to allow the narrative to sit as is. In the case of Dunn, the exaggeration and falsehood left unchallenged could harm the overall validity of the church because of his calling in it. It couldn't sit as is. In the case of some people that I've heard leaving the church who's stories/motives I've questioned (that I've known personally), it could mean the harm and alienation it was causing in their personal relationships or that the story was leaving them unable to see their own culpability and hindering their own growth.

I do think challenging can be problematic and self-serving. But I do think that not challenging can also be problematic and self-serving.

Just my random thoughts to a good question  

 

With luv,

BD 

[stemelbow]

34 minutes ago, Mystery Meat said:

Just to clarify:

This thread was meant to clarify what is and what is not gaslighting. First, I would rarely, IF EVER, call someone to the carpet after they gave me their reasons for leaving the church (unless I had some responsibility/authority for the person, and even then with great care). Really what I was trying to show is what has been answered by Calm, Nehor, and Blue Dreams. And that is just because someone has a story and another person questions that story does not mean that the person questioning is guilty of gaslighting. Based on the other threads and how the terms is being used in the Bloggernacle by ex mos and their allies, you would think disbelief and valid questioning of a story would be gaslighting.

Which leads me to my next clarification. Yes, this thread was meant to explicitly discuss the ex-mos, transitioning mos, doubting mos, and anti-mos' accusations (false accusations) of gaslighting. That is not to say that LDS folks are not capable of creating and concocting these elaborate narratives that are ultimately unreliable and unbelievable. But, and this is critical, LDS folks aren't the ones typically going around accusing the non-mo crowd of gaslighting. In fact, non-mos and those like them have been questioning LDS folks' narratives for decades (if not since the beginning) using terms like cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, and intellectual dishonesty. But the moment I hypothetically bring up the possibility of questioning a former mos exit story, I am called a big jerk.

Oh the hypocrisy.

Just to clarify:  I didn't call you a big jerk.  I said it's jerky behavior for someone to call out "liar", while someone is telling his/her story all because the accuser gets some hunch that the story is untrue. 

[Storm Rider]

13 hours ago, The Nehor said:

This. Gas lighting is actively designed to manipulate. Doubting someone is not gaslighting them. Trying to convince someone to doubt themselves is not even gaslighting.

Manipulating someone to doubt themselves to convince them of something you know is wrong is gaslighting.

To gaslight an exit story you would have to know it is accurate and convince the teller they are wrong about it. Generally gaslighting only occurs in codependent and/or abusive relationships.

Oh my poor, poor Nehor.  How misguided you are.  Each individual is the master of his own world and reality.  It is Gas Lighting if (s)he says it is because it is only their perception and their definition that matters.  The fact that you think you might know the real definition of a word is completely irrelevant.  My young, misguided soul, you have gone astray in your thinking.  

[Robert F. Smith]

14 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

You've had very different training/experience to what I have...

Depends on what you mean.  If you are suggesting that anthropologists take everything they hear with a grain of salt, you'd be correct, but they dare not include those personal value judgments in their description of the beliefs and customs of the cultures they examine.  Indeed, there is even a school of thought within anthropology which insists that one cannot understand a society unless and until one has actually joined it -- thus some anthropologists have actually "gone native."  These observations are standard throughout the profession.  Field work requires that informants be taken seriously.  Ordinary people, on the other hand, tend to be very dismissive or contemptuous of the customs of other cultures.  Anthropologists go out of their way not to do that.

Now, does that differ from your training and experience?

[thesometimesaint]

18 hours ago, Mystery Meat said:

This is another thread related to the practice of "gaslighting." I know, I know. This one is likely to get closed as well, but I want to look at this from a different light.

In the past few years, I have heard many stories of folks who have decided to leave the Church. These folks give me all the reasons for their departure. I have to evaluate their story, weigh their own reliability and determine if I think the story they tell is accurate and fair. 

Also, as a general rule, I think part of having charity is, you know, being charitable to other people. Typically, this means giving them the benefit of the doubt. But sometimes I am forced to choose between two parties and who I am going to believe.

Now, all of this is to say I don't believe that we are always, if ever, reliable narrators of our own stories (this is why many authors write in first person). So, for example, if someone who leaves the Church comes to me and tells me their story and I doubt their story and believe them to be unreliable, is it gaslighting for me to say so and to question the reliability of their account? In practice, I would rarely do this as I don't generally think it is my place. But as a matter of theoretical practice.

Just curious.

It is not gas lighting someone to not believe them.

[Pete Ahlstrom]

1 hour ago, Mystery Meat said:

Just to clarify:

This thread was meant to clarify what is and what is not gaslighting. First, I would rarely, IF EVER, call someone to the carpet after they gave me their reasons for leaving the church (unless I had some responsibility/authority for the person, and even then with great care). Really what I was trying to show is what has been answered by Calm, Nehor, and Blue Dreams. And that is just because someone has a story and another person questions that story does not mean that the person questioning is guilty of gaslighting. Based on the other threads and how the terms is being used in the Bloggernacle by ex mos and their allies, you would think disbelief and valid questioning of a story would be gaslighting.

Which leads me to my next clarification. Yes, this thread was meant to explicitly discuss the ex-mos, transitioning mos, doubting mos, and anti-mos' accusations (false accusations) of gaslighting. That is not to say that LDS folks are not capable of creating and concocting these elaborate narratives that are ultimately unreliable and unbelievable. But, and this is critical, LDS folks aren't the ones typically going around accusing the non-mo crowd of gaslighting. In fact, non-mos and those like them have been questioning LDS folks' narratives for decades (if not since the beginning) using terms like cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, and intellectual dishonesty. But the moment I hypothetically bring up the possibility of questioning a former mos exit story, I am called a big jerk.

Oh the hypocrisy.

I can't speak for anybody but myself about the gaslighting issue. However, I can guess where it comes from.  I think it comes from the misconception that some questioners and non-believers have about the knowledge of the brethren about historical issues, etc.  Some think that the correct view of the issues is so clear that the brethren must know what reality is and deliberately choose to say otherwise and mislead.  Nevertheless, I don't think the brethren, at least the ones I know personally, mislead.  I think they believe in what they are doing and aren't gaslighting.  I don't agree with them but I don't doubt their sincerity.  As for members' doubts about exit narratives, I don't think that can be resolved.  The brethren do not want to validate unbelief because that is the first step to unbelief.  I don't know how many times I heard someone explain in conference how one first tolerates, then accepts, then joins in .... This gets reinforced periodically.  Further, if members are how I was, I believed and thought everyone should believe too.  So, unbelief must be misguided, disingenuous, or misleading.  They must want to sin or it's too hard for them - anything but acceptance of non-belief.

[bluebell]

3 minutes ago, Pete Ahlstrom said:

So, unbelief must be misguided, disingenuous, or misleading.  They must want to sin or it's too hard for them - anything but acceptance of non-belief.

I think this is true no matter what the topic of discussion is (parenting, politics, movies, religion, etc.).  The default human position to those who disagree with their heartfelt beliefs and idea is that the one in disagreement must either be dumb or have a serious character flaw or they would obviously agree with them.

I think it's that human weakness that we all have to fight against.  It's not problematic in any one group of people.  It's problematic in every group of people.  

[mfbukowski]

18 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Bingo!

Which is why I choose not to believe either the people or those who write about them.

You sir, are a smart man!

But we already knew that!

 

[california boy]

5 hours ago, Duncan said:

I felt like he was trying to fit into this other organization and say what he thinks they want to hear, when in fact how many of them would know what he is saying is true. Would they know he wasn't actually a counselour in a Bishopric? or would they just accept what he is saying is true. With me there though , he can lie to them but he would know he's lying and I know he's lying. I wouldn't trust him, no. I wouldn't walk away from it but I would kind of wonder what criteria they have for picking conference speakers

I think this is how some members of the church feel when the church has changed the narrative to make things appear to have more credibility.  For many years they accepted what the church told them was true.  And they loose trust in the church, just like you did with the credibility of your friend.  I doubt you would be willing to join in with the organization he is representing when you know that the representation is not credible.  If anything, perhaps this experience with your friend will give you more insight into how some members are feeling about how the church represented some of it's history

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, Storm Rider said:

Oh my poor, poor Nehor.  How misguided you are.  Each individual is the master of his own world and reality.  It is Gas Lighting if (s)he says it is because it is only their perception and their definition that matters.  The fact that you think you might know the real definition of a word is completely irrelevant.  My young, misguided soul, you have gone astray in your thinking.  

If I am mad then it is a glorious madness. Now if you will excuse me there are some windmills plotting great evil that need to feel the bite of my lance. Farewell!

[juliann]

4 hours ago, Mystery Meat said:

 

Which leads me to my next clarification. Yes, this thread was meant to explicitly discuss the ex-mos, transitioning mos, doubting mos, and anti-mos' accusations (false accusations) of gaslighting. That is not to say that LDS folks are not capable of creating and concocting these elaborate narratives that are ultimately unreliable and unbelievable. But, and this is critical, LDS folks aren't the ones typically going around accusing the non-mo crowd of gaslighting. In fact, non-mos and those like them have been questioning LDS folks' narratives for decades (if not since the beginning) using terms like cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, and intellectual dishonesty. But the moment I hypothetically bring up the possibility of questioning a former mos exit story, I am called a big jerk.

Oh the hypocrisy.

We seem to have accumulated some exmo folk who demand control over a mo board, to put it bluntly.  There is to be no discussion of what they criticize in us if their side is doing it and this is playing out in a disturbing number of threads. Anyway, they need to attend to the scholarship. As an introduction....

Quote

 

In short, by the 1980’s the social functions performed by apostates for countermovements, nativistic or otherwise, were conceptually recognized by researchers (e.g., Bromley 1988; Robbins 1988;  Shinn 1987, pp. 144-69).  As Shupe (1981, p. 214) observes, such apostates are predictable in times of intersocial movement conflict:

In sociological terms apostasy is a particular status, and one who assumes it—or can make others believe that one is an actual apostate—gains a great deal of credibility.  The appearance of persons claiming to have been members of some unpopular group and now willing to expose it well-nigh inevitable in such conflicts over social movements, for just as the movement or group in question. . . tries to refute opponents’ allegations, so the latter “anti’s” feel under greater pressure to come up with better “proof” for their claims.  Who can provide better proof of misdeeds than a confessed former perpetrator of them?

It is worth noting that at least in the original formulations of the terms “apostates” and “atrocity tales” the sincerity of the apostates was not questioned.  According to Bromley, Shupe, and Ventimiglia (1979), apostates’ tales of abuse were simply regarded as accounts (in the social psychological meaning of that term), unexamined corroboratively for their “real” content.  The main issue was not such stories’ veracity or accuracy but rather the functions they served for countermovements to render other social movements problematic in the public arena.

Anson Shupe, “The Role of Apostates in the North American Anticult Movement,” in The Politics of Religious Apostasy: The Role of Apostates in the Transformation of Religious Movements, ed. David G. Bromley (Westport, CT: Praegers Publishers, 1998), 211.

 

But....

Quote

 

There is no denying the fact that autobiographies consist of highly selective, idealized, accounts of the lives of the people who write them. . . This characterization applies doubly to apostate narratives, which are shaped by something more than just authorial vanity or constructionist endeavors.  Beyond the authors’ basic concerns that the tales told of them coincide with what Adams (1990) calls their “private mythologies,” the autobiographical elements of apostate narratives are further shaped by a concern that the targeted religious groups be painted in the worst possible light. 

Daniel Carson Johnson, “Apostates Who Never Were: The Social Construction of Absque Facto Apostate Narratives,”  in The Politics of Religious Apostasy: The Role of Apostates in the Transformation of Religious Movements, ed. David G. Bromley (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1998), 118.

 

 

[juliann]

Quote

 

The archetypal account that is negotiated is a “captivity narrative” in which apostates assert that they were innocently or naively operating in what they had every reason to believe was a normal, secure social site; were subjected to overpowering subversive techniques; endured a period of subjugation during which they experienced tribulation and humiliation; ultimately effected escape or rescue from the organization; and subsequently renounced their former loyalties and issued a public warning of the dangers of the former organization as a matter of civic responsibility. . . Emphasis on the irresistibility of subversive techniques is vital to apostates and their allies as a means of locating responsibility for participation on the organization rather than on the former members.   This account avoids attribution of calculated choices that would call for invoking the label of traitor.  Further, a broad allegation of subversion allows a diverse array of opponents to unite under a common banner and formulate a variety of claims in terms that will mobilize or neutralize a broad spectrum of interests.  Upon the rendering of an acceptable narrative, the oppositional coalition accepts pledges and tests of loyalty and professions of regret as the basis for reintegetration into social networks to which it controls access. 

David G. Bromley, “The Social Construction of Contested Exit Roles: Defectors, Whistleblowers, and Apostates,”  in The Politics of Religious Apostasy: The Role of Apostates in the Transformation of Religious Movements, ed. David G. Bromley (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers), 37.

The whistleblower role is defined here as one in which an organization member forms an alliance with an external regulatory unit through offering personal testimony concerning specific, contested organizational practices that is then used to sanction the organization. The narrative depicts the whistleblower as motivated by personal conscience and the organization by defense of public interest.

 David G. Bromley, “The Social Construction of Contested Exit Roles: Defectors, Whistleblowers, and Apostates,”  in The Politics of Religious Apostasy: The Role of Apostates in the Transformation of Religious Movements, ed. David G. Bromley (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1998), 31.

 

 

[Stargazer]

22 hours ago, strappinglad said:

I remember sitting around the campfire telling stories about events in our lives. After a while it became obvious to me that some of the stories were of other peoples experiences and not of the individual speaking. I even found myself telling of an event that happened to a person that had told me about it, as if it had happened to me personally. Some of the stories were true, others were REALLY true , if you know what I mean.

I understand what you mean, but it reminded me of this little clip from Deep Space 9, and I must post it!

 

[probablyHagoth7]

22 hours ago, Mystery Meat said:

LDS folks aren't the ones typically going around accusing the non-mo crowd of gaslighting. In fact, non-mos and those like them have been questioning LDS folks' narratives for decades (if not since the beginning) using terms like cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias...

The mo/exmo dynamic isn't something I was specifically speaking to. My focus was rather the dynamic between people supposedly sharing the same pew. 

Joseph himself even spoke of the problem with cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias...*within* and among the church. 

Which is why the 11th article of faith, or the premise of in the nonessenntials liberty, in all things charity,  is an important clutch plate amongst ourselves, to absorb what would otherwise be uncharitable, unnecessary friction. A way to maintain peace and harmony among a diverse people who are learning and advancing and improving at different rates. A way to respect and encourage those who are advancing more slowly or more quickly or in a different way today than we did yesterday. 

Is there room here for a discussion like that?

Edited May 26, 2017 by probablyHagoth7